


Twenty Truths About Team Gai

by the coffee cup (oakleaf)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Contains general Team Gai! awesomeness, Gen, References to slash, Team Dynamics, Team Gai! feels, Team as Family, headcannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oakleaf/pseuds/the%20coffee%20cup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Or: twenty truths about Team Gai before and after the chunnin exam where they gained an exclamation mark and became Team Gai!)</p>
<p>They weren’t the strongest, nor the most special, nor the most famous. But they were the one team that lived together, fought together and died together. Gen, mild humour, some fluff. Gets gradually darker, probable cannon divergence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty Truths About Team Gai

**TWENTY TRUTHS ABOUT TEAM GAI**

**1.** **They passed the genin test before they even did the genin test.**

The reason behind this was quite simple, really. Gai, being the person he was, decided to follow his ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ eternal rival and give his genin team the bell test.

What he didn’t count on was to see them arrive, all three of them, with breakfast for all three of them. Neji because he wanted to make sure they passed, Tenten because she thought that they might not have had breakfast and Lee, well because Lee was Lee. So in that way, they ended up with nine breakfasts and a dilemma.

Gai burst onto the scene, tears streaming behind him, proclaiming something the springtime of youth and their youthfulness. They just sat there, stared at him and ate.

Of course, showing teamwork before the bell test actually occurred didn’t mean they automatically passed. No, not at all. Gai made them do the test anyway, because he was just strange like that.

**2.** **It was Neji tied to the log.**

Well, they technically passed before they even did the test. But they didn’t work much together during the test, which was the problem.

Somehow, they managed to pass, but nobody has ever gotten the full story from them. It was believed to have involved some leaves, many jyuuken and a few well placed senbons. For a week afterwards, Gai jumped every time he saw his team.

Team Gai kept their lips shut about what happened, but every now and then, when in private, they brought it up and shared a laugh. Tenten and Lee in particular can’t get over the fact that it was Neji tied to the log, for ‘not having enough youthful spirit’ - Gai’s way of saying he was scowling too much.

What happened after that, well, was anyone’s guess. Suffice to say, Gai never told Neji off for ‘not having enough youthful spirit’. Ever again.

**3.** **Together, they have finished the most D rank missions ever.**

In fact, they probably finished around twice the amount of D rank missions as all the ‘Rookie 9’ combined.

Reason 1: they had two years. Reason 2: Gai and Lee. Does any more need to be said?

Gai and Lee insisted on treating every single mission as a competition. And Neji and Tenten got dragged along.

Team Gai holds the record in almost every single mission concerning Tora the cat. The shortest time (1 and a half minutes. They went outside and found it, just sitting there) and the most captures in a day (Gai and Lee insist it was 16. Neji and Tenten lost count after 10.).

They even developed a system for catching Tora the cat, and therefore was the called on team most of the time. Their system had something to do with the sudden paralysis that Tora the cat mysteriously suffered every time it saw the Green Beasts of Konoha (which may have something to do with a hug-fest the second time they captured that _thing_ ). Neji and Tenten would have to simply stroll in to capture it - it was easy when your target had a healthy fear.

Interestingly, no one ever questioned why it was never Gai or Lee carrying Tora the cat back.

 

**4\. If you asked them three years later what their dream was, they’d all decline to answer.**

Whilst all the other teams had been disbanded, Team Gai! (the exclamation mark mysteriously appeared after that ill-fated chunin exams, and stuck ever since) continued to be one team. When anyone ever noticed and bothered to ask, the Godaime Hokage would gain a fearful look in her eye, mutter something about leaves, jyuuken, senbon and Tora the cat and shiver uncontrollably.

If you asked them what their dream was, Gai would not answer in his loud, booming voice it was to defeat his eternal rival. Lee would not hop into the ‘good guy’ pose and say it was to become as great a shinobi as Gai-sensei. Tenten would not fiddle with a kunai while declaring that she wanted to be the greatest kunoichi ever, surpassing even the Godaime Hokage. Neji would not glare at you until you finally turned away.

Instead, they’d all smile that annoying smile they’d give when anyone asked anything about Team Gai and walk away.

Because to each and every one of them (not that they knew it), protecting Team Gai was their biggest dream.

 

**5\. Out of all the teams, Team Gai! was the closest.**

Team 7 was too disjointed, one running away to join a S-Class criminal and one leaving for a three year training stint with one of the three legendary Sannin, the third left all alone in Konoha.

Team 8 was too special. Each and every one of them had a kekkei genkai, and was an heir to a clan. They may have worked well together, but they weren’t a truly functioning team.

Team 10 was too stubborn. They knew each other so well that their fighting abilities were exceptional, but their personalities clashed too much.

Team Gai! worked together because they knew when the time came, they could only rely on one another. They had no one else, so they stuck together.

 

**6.** **Everyone in Team Gai knew how to cook.**

No one in Team Gai had any semblance of family, so they drifted together a lot. After all, living and eating by yourself all the time is quite lonely.

Invariably, every Friday they would end up at Gai’s house. Instead of all getting take-away, each made dinner a different week.

Lee made the (always green) vegetables. The rest of Team Gai! had to admit, what Lee could do to vegetables was a miracle (‘That is why I am the noble Green Beast of Konoha!’ Lee would always exclaim proudly).

When it was Tenten’s go at making dinner, everyone stayed out of the kitchen. Her knife skills were just way too scary, and no one knew when she might accidently (or even on purpose) throw one at them. Her dishes, on the other hand, were excellent. She could slice things into the thinnest pieces, chop them or dice them, wielding the kitchen knives in a way that would make a professional chef green with envy.

Interestingly enough, but perhaps not that surprisingly, Neji was best at making oriental style food. His noodles… suffice to say that they were always finished, never even a single strand left over. His precise movements made sure he always added the perfect amount of each ingredient and made noodles so good that no matter how hard the rest of the members of Team Gai! tried, they couldn’t replicate.

And Gai… well someone had to have taught his pupils how to cook, right?

But interestingly enough, no one in Team Gai! could make dessert.

They got used to that.

 

**7.** **They had been invited to join the T &I department.**

After being given a recommendation by the Hokage (who was muttering something about leaves, jyuuken, senbon and Tora the cat), Ibiki decided to trial Team Gai!.

They managed to convince him to play poker.

In the end, Ibiki was left shocked. He had lost. Spectacularly.

He had no idea that in their spare time, Team Gai! played a lot of card games. Poker was a favourite, as was cheat. Snap they played on occasion, but it normally ended very violently, reminding them why they rarely played it.

The thing was, Tean Gai! was very observant. In order to win at poker and cheat, their poker faces became very, very good.

Good enough to beat Ibiki. And the rest of the T&I department. And somehow, they managed to scar the whole department, as well as gather blackmail on all the members.

Somehow.

Ibiki never figured out how they did it. Team Gai! never told him. Ibiki was impressed enough to offer them a place in the T&I department. They refused.

Ibiki was somewhat thankful, because frankly, the whole department was way too afraid of them. However, every now and then when there was a prisoner who just wouldn’t break, he invited in Team Gai!. Within a few hours, they started singing, giving up any information needed in order to get away from them.

Shaking his head, he wondered how they did it. He even asked the Hokage.

Who just muttered something about leaves, jyuuken, senbon and Tora the cat.

Ibiki decided he didn’t want to know.

 

**8.** **All of them had strange hobbies - for shinobi.**

Not a single other shinobi knew what Team Gai! did in their spare time. Team Gai! had very little spare time, but when they did, they made the most of it.

Tenten liked to make soft toys. Her needlework was always precise and neat, so tiny that it looked like the pieces of fabric were held together by nothing. The needle seemed to be an extension of her hand. She could also make clothes and kimonos, but she liked to make soft toys the most. She would always give them away, and seeing the children happy made her happy. The orphanages around Konoha never knew who it was making the soft toys, but they were infinitely grateful to the anonymous person. Each birthday, Lee was given a toy turtle, Neji a bird and Gai a weapon. This was her thanks to them for everything.

Neji liked origami. What he could create from a simple piece of paper was astonishing, but what he could do with multiple was even more so. His miniature model of the Hokage tower, made purely of paper was given as a present to Gai, and every birthday he’d give Gai a paper model of a building. Tenten was given a small paper weapon, some of which she had never seen before, and Lee was given a different animal each time.

Lee once asked why they gave him animals. Neji and Tenten looked at each other and cracked up. So the tradition of giving Lee an animal every year on his birthday was born.

Lee’s favourite pastime was reading. He could read very fast, and devoured books. While Neji and Tenten occasionally joined in reading, Lee was an avid reader. He would read any type of book, and would often talk their ears off about the latest book he read. His gift to everyone for their birthday would inevitably be a book.

Gai liked to cook. If he hadn’t become a shinobi, he would have made a fine chef. Sometimes after a particularly brutal training session, they would go over to Gai’s house and he would cook for them. He taught all of them how to cook, but he was the overall master. His students may be better at cooking some things, but he was still the best chef overall.

Every time they crashed at Gai’s house after a brutal training session, Gai would go into the kitchen to prepare dinner, Tenten would get out her sewing kit and sit cross-legged on the floor, Neji would grab his paper and sit at Gai’s desk (which was rarely used otherwise), Lee pulling out his latest book and settling into the beanbag.

When Gai finished cooking, he would observe them going about their tasks and grin, before announcing that dinner was ready, causing them to all jump up.

 

**9.** **All of them were offered a position in ANBU but refused.**

Gai was offered the spot before he became a sensei but declined, saying it wasn’t for him.

Neji was the first to be offered, a year or so after he became jounin. He said no because he thought he was still too young.

Tenten was the next to be offered a spot, a few months after she became jounin but she declined, saying that there were still things she wanted to do and that no, she didn’t have a death wish.

Lee was offered a spot after he managed to defeat an S-class nin and opened seven of the eight gates. He declined, saying that he didn’t want to become a shadow like all ANBU.

While all these reasons were true, the main reason all of them declined was because they didn’t want to be split apart. If they had offered all of Team Gai! to become ANBU together, the greatest and most terrible ANBU team ever would have been formed.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, this never happened, and they didn’t get their spirits crushed by the monster that was ANBU.

 

**10.** **They started what would later be called the ‘Great Prank War’.**

And it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t actually start it purposely. Or maybe they did. But either way, the people of Konoha still don’t know who and what started it, and Team Gai! won’t be telling any time soon.

It was simple and innocent enough beginning.

Or perhaps not.

But either way, Team Gai! has never been blamed for beginning it, and they are thankful for that. Because having the entire Hyuga clan after you, as well as Naruto, the ANBU and most of the jounins after you is never good.

It started a bit like this: Neji invited Team Gai! into the Hyuga compound. They decided to have a little sparring session. This ‘little sparring session’ somehow turned into a complete battle, and several walls were broken; the training ground completely torn to shreds. Seeing the destruction, they decided to do the smart thing: disappear.

When the Hyuga’s saw the complete destruction of one of their prized training grounds, they suspected a prank, especially since there was paint everywhere (Team Gai! just happened to be chucking paint balls at each other for training).

Suspecting Konoha’s normal prankster, they decided to retaliate - pranking Naruto.

Naruto, suspecting he had been pranked by the ANBU (he had recently made their hair all turn green), pranked the ANBU.

The ANBU, who thought it was the jounins, started pranking them. And the jounins, being jounins, couldn’t figure out who was responsible and just started pranking everybody.

And so the Great Prank War started, only finishing when the Tsunande decided she had had enough of her shinobi popping up with strange coloured hair and missing various things, coming late to summons and various other interesting problems stemming from this Prank War. She told everyone to stop or else she would send whoever was responsible to hospital with broken bones.

It stopped, and Team Gai! was thankfully unharmed.

But nevertheless, they never trained inside the Hyuga compound again.

**11.** **They started a vegetable garden together.**

It was a small thing, placed in Gai’s backyard.

The first time they tried to grow something, they planted many different fruits vegetables. Sadly, it was destroyed after a particularly boisterous spar.

The second time, the vegetable garden lasted only a little while longer. They had a long term mission, and it died as there was no one to look after it.

For the third time, the weather was too wet and all the plant died from too much watering.

The fourth time was slightly better - they managed to successfully grow some lettuce, but the rest of the plants died. They all ended up in hospital - apparently the lettuce was poisoned.

In spite, or perhaps because of all the mishaps in all the previous years, they decided to be very careful when trying it for the fifth time. Not one of them knew growing plants was this hard.

They gradually started to get better at it, but it wasn’t until the seventh time that they finally managed to produce edible fruit and vegetables.

That night, they had a very, very satisfying dinner.

 

**12.** **They all ended up getting obscure summons in obscure circumstances.**

Tenten ended up with the rabbit summoning scroll, Neji with a grasshopper summoning scroll and Lee somehow managed to summon Gai. And Gai… well he got his turtle summoning scroll in a very, very interesting way.

Tenten was given the rabbit summoning scroll after a successful mission. Her client gave it to her in gratitude, saying that his ancestors used to be shinobi and this was a summoning scroll. Interested, she signed it, but was sorely disappointed when a rabbit popped out. After trying to skin it so she could eat it for dinner, she ended up with a healthy fear for that thing.

She eventually made friends with her rabbits, and when someone scoffed at her summons, she would simply summon one and sic it on them. After that, they would gain a healthy fear for her summons, while also being scarred for life. It certainly scared Neji and Lee enough that they never, ever, insulted that her summons. Having rabid rabbits chasing you does do that to people.

Neji’s grasshoppers came when he almost squished a cricket. To his surprise, it started talking to him. Naturally, he tried to kill it. The cricket escaped but summoned a giant cricket. He fought the giant cricket to a standstill, and they were locked at a stalemate whereby Neji couldn’t move without being squashed and the giant cricket couldn’t move without being blasted into a thousand little pieces.

To his great surprise, a giant grasshopper appeared and that gave him the opening to attack the cricket, which then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Just as he thought his day couldn’t get any stranger, he was just about forcibly manhandled into signing the grasshopper summoning scroll. And the rest, they say, is history.

The less said about Lee and Gai the better. Even Tenten and Neji don’t broach the subject with a ten foot pole, and given their tolerance for insanity, that’s saying a lot.

 

**13.** **They liked doing protection missions the best.**

On their first protection mission, Tenten lost her favourite senbon, Neji lost a hair tie, Lee lost the squirrel he was going to keep as his pet and Gai lost his sanity, if he had any to start with. It was not a very auspicious beginning.

Their second protection mission went a lot better. Tenten learnt that rabbits, which she could easily hunt, made a great stew, which helped since she didn’t have much money to buy meat with. Neji finally had a civil conversation with someone outside of the team (he had long since given up on maintaining his haughty disposition around his teammates, finally acknowledging defeat in the face of their sheer insanity). Lee was introduced to the wonders of meditation, which was a miracle for the rest Team Gai (this being before the chunin exams and the introduction of the exclamation mark).

And Gai? Gai got to see his little charges running around like headless chicken, and finally learn how to co-operate. And he got a very nice calligraphy piece from their client as a token of his gratitude. Their client had been a little-known calligrapher but was now very famous, and that one piece would be worth a small fortune if he ever sold it. That is, if his children didn’t accidentally destroy it first.

From then on out, Team Gai! made a name for themselves on protection missions, not only delivering the clients safely and soundly each time but also providing encouragement to the lost and strength to those who needed it – not purposely, of course. Inside each of them was a little spirit that refused to give up, and this flame soon kindled the fire in others. Many of them went on to become famous, and attributed their rise to Team Gai!, much to their confusion.

 

**14.** **The topic of family was rarely brought up.**

None of them were raised in what could even remotely be considered as good home conditions, but each member couldn’t but help feel that it didn’t really matter as they had a new family now.

**15.** **None of them ever ended up in a relationship.**

Many people, throughout the ages, suspected that there were things going on between Neji and Tenten. For a while, Neji and Tenten thought so too and there were a few days before they skirted awkwardly around each other with much blushing. Lee, being the great friend he was, pushed them into a date.

Far from being romantic, the date was pathetically awkward until they realised that they did just like each other as friends and semi-siblings after all, and left it at that. They re-affirmed their friendly bond by ganging up on Lee the next time they had a free-for-all sparring session.

Lee and Tenten had a brief period where they went out, too, but that also didn’t work out. Just to be completely thorough with it all, Lee and Neji went out but ended up accidentally demolishing the restaurant. They called it quits before the date even finished.

Of course, they’d tried to branch outside of their team. Tenten had briefly gone out with a rather plain male civilian, and then there’d been that rather interesting episode with the two other older kunoichi which now made her blush. Lee had chased after Sakura for a long time, but by the end it had become a ritual with no real intent. Neji had had a brief crush on Naruto after his rather spectacular defeat in the Chunin finals, but that had faded very quickly. Lee and Tenten love teasing Neji about that, however.

Gai could have told them all that it didn’t matter if you couldn’t find someone to get together with romantically – and that sometimes, having family is best of all.

**  
**

**16.** **Team Gai! left a lot people confused, and not just the enemy either.**

There was that one time where Team Gai! had to pretend to be a family for a mission, which was run with two ANBU members. By the time they’d returned to Konoha, the two ANBU had flat out refused to do missions with Team Gai! ever again, and there were rumours swirling around doubting the true genders and personalities of the members.

Let it never be said that Team Gai! was not dedicated to their missions. For this particular mission (as had been the case several times before), Neji had been forced to pretend to be a female. After grumbling at first, he had shocked the ANBU by pulling off a very realistic impression of a female, to such an extent that it took more than a year for Neji to convince them once more that he was, in fact, a male. Lee had pulled off the impression of an intelligent, perfectly gentlemanly (and most importantly, entirely sane) young boy who was completely devoted to his older sister. By the end of the mission, the ANBU were questioning which Lee was the real Lee, and whether Lee and Neji were secretly together (they weren’t at that time, but they did try after they heard about it – after they’d almost laughed themselves to death, of course).

Tenten, with a harried expression and carefully applied make-up, instantly became an amiable but stressed widow, who was _just taking the children to see their father’s family_. Gai, with a few gray streaks and a slowed step, became the doting grandfather, there to accompany his daughter to keep her company and make sure nothing happened to her.

When they reached their target destination, there was little the ANBU had to do but clean up and watch the sides as Team Gai! annihilated the enemy. Nothing was left of the people they had been pretending to be.

On the way back, it was Neji as the mother, Lee as the father and Tenten as the child, with Gai still watching with a deceptively senile gaze, hidden as the doddery old grandfather. Upon returning to Konoha, they had once again resumed their typical demeanour, and the ANBU said goodbye and tried their very best to forget about what they’d seen.

They realised, in the end Team Gai! were, for all their quirks and insanity, shinobi through and through.

**  
**

******17.** **Their first kills were all exceedingly violent.**

Surprisingly enough, Tenten is the youngest of the team in terms of first kill, even before Gai sensei, even before she entered the academy. She had been weaponless; her assailant had not. She had engineered a trap which had caused a three ton block of steel to crush his head. She had stood far enough away that the blood splatters hadn’t reached her.

That night, she had cried herself to sleep. That episode had cemented her dependence on weapons – they were clean and quick.

She was also the first to make a kill on the genin team. She had killed the bandit before she had registered her actions, but they had been about to attack her family and that was enough.

She vomited, of course, but never mentioned it again. Neji and Lee never considered her weak again.

Lee was the second one to register a kill. The enemy had claimed that he had killed Neji and Tenten, and something within Lee had snapped. He had pummelled the guy until there was blood on his fists and blood coming from the other guy’s mouth and blood coming from his ears. Lee didn’t even notice when the blood stopped flowing. It took the combined might of all three other members of the team to pull Lee off the other shinobi, who at this stage barely resembled a human. Lee had smiled to cover up his horror and to keep from crying.

Even as he was disgusted at his actions, he knew he would do the same once more if Tenten or Neji or Gai sensei were ever in danger.

It was Neji who calmly washed the blood off Lee, who was still trying to stay inane and light-hearted. He didn’t seem repulsed by the sheer violence, and clapped Lee on the shoulder once. Lee understood, and is smile became a little more real.

Neji had been the last, but by no means less violent. He had finally perfected his Eight Trigrams: Sixty Four Palms technique and wanted to test it out. By thirty-two strikes, the missing-nin was dead. Neji finished the technique, and then went on to the next missing-nin. Lee and Tenten were out of commission, and Gai sensei was busy. On the edge of chakra exhaustion, Neji poured everything into the attack. The enemy was dead within the first sixteen strikes this time.

The first thing Neji did upon coming back to Konoha was send his team to the hospital, then the mission report to the Hokage. He then practised until Tenten and Lee were released to makes his Sixty Four Palms less lethal.

He then took a long shower, and he realised that he would do it all again and again if it meant everyone he cared about was safe.

 

 

Gai’s first kill was during the third shinobi war. The nameless shinobi had looked back at him with unfocused eyes after he had finished, with no guilt and no life in them. He was just glad that his team’s first kills had been out of love, not hatred.

**  
**

******18.** **They all died within an hour of each other.**

Even though they had lived for each other, they died to save the world.

In the end, they didn’t die for each other as they had once thought they would. Neji didn’t die to save Lee out of whatever situation his chivalry had caused. Tenten hadn’t died to save the team, sacrificing herself to activate the last of her scrolls to provide an escape route for the others. Lee hadn’t died because he’d activated the last gate in an attempt to overwhelm the opponent, even when everyone was just on the precipice.

But Gai, driven by grief over his student’s deaths, had provided the distraction needed to finally defeat the enemy for once and for all, opening the last gate to do so.

And he’d died with a smile on his face.

Because even if they hadn’t died for each other, they’d lived with each other and died with each other.

And so they’d died with smiles on their faces.

  


**19.** **Their names went on the Memorial Stone together, as a team, for the first time.**

Their names went down right below one another’s, with the inscription TEAM GAI! carefully chiselled underneath. The Hyuuga clan didn’t have a chance to object, nor did anyone else. No-one could figure out just who put that inscription there. It goes down in history as one of the greatest mysterious of the universe, not only because it was the first time an entire team was immortalised on the memorial stone.

But then again, Team Gai! was always good at making history.

Their tale was whispered for generations to come: the tale of Team Gai!, the team from the Age of Heroes, _the team that went on the most dangerous missions [because there was no one waiting for them back home]._

 

  


**20.** **In the end, not a single one of them regretted even a single moment of their time together.**

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually my first story on this site.
> 
> This story has been three years in the making. Actually, it's more like I started it, lost it for a whole heap of years, found it again while looking for another story and then decided to finish it.
> 
> Reviews are nice. I'm looking for ways to improve my writing so please tell me any ways I can improve my writing style. If you also disagree with my characterization, please inform me so I know how to improve.
> 
> Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> EDIT: some minor problems that got through editing fixed. Also, finally got logged in to respond to the lovely reviews I received. I cannot thank you enough :)


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